The Ancient Dancer in the Modern World

Responses to Greek and Roman Dance

Edited by Fiona Macintosh

An essential complement to the new, performance-based study of ancient theatre

Lavishly illustrated, with many rare archive photographs

Traces a wealth of classical influences upon modern dance, from Fred Astaire to Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham

The Ancient Dancer in the Modern World

Responses to Greek and Roman Dance

Edited by Fiona Macintosh

Description

When the eighteenth-century choreographer Jean-Georges Noverre sought to develop what is now known as modern ballet, he turned to ancient pantomime as his source of inspiration; and when Isadora Duncan and her contemporaries looked for alternatives to the strictures of classical ballet, they looked to ancient Greek vases for models for what they termed 'natural' movement. This is the first book to examine systematically the long history of the impact of ideas about ancient Greek and Roman dance on modern theatrical and choreographic practices. With contributions from eminent classical scholars, dance historians, theatre specialists, modern literary critics, and art historians, as well as from contemporary practitioners, it offers a very wide conspectus on an under-explored but central aspect of classical reception, dance and theatre history, and the history of ideas.

The Ancient Dancer in the Modern World

Responses to Greek and Roman Dance

Edited by Fiona Macintosh

Table of Contents

Introduction, Fiona MacintoshI. Dance and the Ancient Sources 1: Dead but not Extinct: On Reinventing Pantomime Dancing in Eighteenth-Century England and France, Ismene Lada-Richards 2: 'In Search of a Dead Rat': The Reception of Ancient Greek Dance in Late Nineteenth-Century Europe and America, Frederick Naerebout 3: The Tanagra Effect: Wrapping the Modern Body in the Folds of Ancient Greece, Ann Cooper-Albright 4: Reception or Deception? Approaching Dance through Vase-Painting, Tyler Jo Smith 5: A Pylades for the twentieth century: Fred Astaire and the Aesthetic of Bodily Eloquence, Kathleen RileyII. Dance and Decadence 6: 'Where there is Dance there is the Devil': Ancient and Modern Representations of Salome, Ruth Webb 7: 'Heroes of the Dance Floor': The Missing Exemplary Male Dancer in the Ancient Sources, Edith Hall 8: Servile Bodies? The Status of the Professional Dancer in the Late Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries, Jennifer Thorp 9: Dancing Maenads in Early Twentieth-Century Britain, Fiona MacintoshIII. Dance and Myth 10: Ancient Greece, Dance and the English Masque, Barbara Ravelhofer 11: Dancing with Prometheus: Performance and Spectacle in the 1920s, Pantelis Michelakis 12: From Duncan to Bausch with Iphigenia, Alessandra Zanobi 13: Ancient Myths and Modern Moves: The Greek-Inspired Dance Theatre of Martha Graham, Henrietta Bannerman 14: Iphigenia, Orpheus and Eurydice in the Human Narrative of Pina Bausch, Nadine MeisnerIV. Ancient Dance and the Modern Mind 15: Knowing the Dancer, Knowing the Dance: The Dancer as Décor, Daniel Albright 16: Modernism and Dance: Apollonian or Dionysian?, Sue Jones 17: Dance, Psychoanalysis and Modernist Aesthetics: Martha Graham's `Night Journey', Vanda Zajko 18: Striking a Balance: The Apolline and Dionysiac in Post-Classical Choreography, Arabella Stanger 19: Caryl Churchill and Ian Spink 'allowing the past to speak directly to the present', Richard CaveV. The Ancient Chorus in Contemporary Performance 20: Staniewski's Secret Alphabet of Gestures: Dance, Body and Metaphysics, Yana Zarifi 21: Gesamtkunstwerk: Modern Moves and the Ancient Chorus, Struan Leslie 22: Red Ladies : Who are they and what do they want?, Suzy Willson & Helen Eastman

The Ancient Dancer in the Modern World

Responses to Greek and Roman Dance

Edited by Fiona Macintosh

Author Information

Edited by Fiona Macintosh, Director of the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, Reader in the Reception of Greek and Roman Literature, Supernumerary Fellow St Hilda's College, University of Oxford

Fiona Macintosh became Director of the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama in January 2010, after ten years as Senior Research Fellow. In 2008 she was made Reader in Greek and Roman Drama. She is currently Supernumerary Fellow of St Hilda's College and University Lecturer in the Reception of Greek and Roman Literature. She is author of Dying Acts: Death in Ancient Greek and ModernIrish Tragic Drama (1994; 1995), Greek Tragedy and the British Theatre 1660-1914 (Oxford University Press; 2005), and Sophocles' 'Oedipus Tyrannus' (2009). She has co-edited numerous APGRD publications: Dionysus Since 69 (with Edith Hall and Amanda Wrigley) (Oxford University Press; 2004), Agamemnon in Performance 458BC to AD2005 (with Pantelis Michelakis, Edith Hall, and Oliver Taplin) (Oxford University Press; 2005).